#Sam's Assert

[heir-of-hope]

Another Nathan Pyle comic dub! I love how, despite the beings having unique names for everything, they still have regular human sounding names.

[wombpala]

the tragedy of Dean to me is he steps into the controlling patriarch role bc he is wired to capitulate to gendered hierarchy (bc it reinforces the image of Family, protector/protected) but I don't think he wants to be on the top rung of that ladder. it's where he positions himself but I don't think he desires or prefers control. to have desires at all is a disgusting concept to him and he LOVES following rules in fact half his life is making up little rules for himself and following them as meticulously as he can all while believing he has no choice. he takes the shape of his container. ok what if you were the goodest bravest hero what if you were the best most dutiful little soldier and served your commander so well he became like God for you. I'm a good son I take care of Sammy that's my JOB. but then the guy who gives you orders dies and bc of how gendered hierarchies work you inherit his position. and all you wanna do is find somebody else to take orders from but nobody else is ever gonna be good enough you can't just pick a new God! that's sacrilegious. it's insulting. so you take the shape of your new container.

[theboykingsmichaelsword]

sam's fixation on cleansing what he believes is the inherent filth of his being yeah i could easily see him as a priest in another life i know catholic guilt when i see it

[sammygender]

I saw that post you made about spn it's textual and metaphorical depictions of abuse and stuff. And it made me think, on the other end of the spectrum, spn textually wants and makes it necessary for the Winchesters to defy fate while subtextually often saying it's impossible to defy. The show calls them team free will, but many times when a character tries to use that free will and assess situations/make decisions for themselves it inevitably backfires.

auguhhhhh. YEAH. this is so smart.

[finalgirlsamwinchester]

it's so funny...all these years spent avoiding spn because everything i learned via tumblr osmosis was annoying as hell. if someone'd pointed me towards sam's narrative *everything* i'd have been a sucker in a heartbeat

[hellhoundlair]

we as a society need to discuss sam filling deans dad hole more often

[luxurystark-jackson]

rip sam winchester you would’ve loved bears in trees and hannah bahng

[keen-eye]

what is the meaning behind the only two clear memories of spn i had years after watching it as young adolescent being 1) sam & ruby making out and 2) sam saying "so?"

[not-a-cheese-thief]

One thing that always shits me is how the women of The West Wing always think the best way to get favours out of Sam is to play to his ego. It's often been played off like a joke, and in season one, when it was CJ wanting help learning about census data, Sam played into it, but throughout the show it gets worse. To the point where it's clearly upsetting to him.

I hate watching these women play at acting like damsels to get his help with something when he's probably the only one on the show who would always do pretty much anyone a favour just because he's kind. Sam actually listens to people's arguments. Women included. They don't have to manipulate him into trying to impress them. He's willing to be persuaded and to change is mind. Hell, one time he cancelled a rare holiday (ugh, "vacation") last minute because a man who literally used to beat him up asked for help. Yes, Sam felt responsible for saving a man's life, but that's the point. He cares. Even when it really isn't on him, he'll make it his problem.

[heir-of-hope]

After tonight's VMAs performance, I think Chappell Roan is definitely a Paladin/Bard.

She would worship the goddess Sune, who aligns with Roan almost perfectly.

Like, just look at this.

[samlover4evr]

am i not allowed to simultaneously love and hate the relationship that dean and sam have like People dont get that things like this can make you have complicated feelings. yes i hate how dean treats sam but i still think they are important to each other. i prefer their relationship in the earlier seasons because of how much dean belittles sam later on. like. how are you okay with that even though its fictional lol

idk maybe im a weirdo

[ardentpoop]

truly you needed to be there (sam stan during peak spnblr years surrounded by ppl willfully misinterpreting him to prop up their whitebread ship)

[academicgangster]

reddit woman has the nerve to think she can talk to me about the fugitive (1993)

[samwiselastname]

really not over how I recently shared in a group setting that I was pinging chatgpt to create strings of phonemes I could retool or bounce off of for worldbuilding and someone who I don't think I've interacted with before was like "I've been paid to train AIs by writing fiction prompts, and you're exploiting my labor directly, you're having people worldbuild for you"

and it's petty and rude, but being faced with such a random escalation based on like, core misunderstandings of what any issues with machine learning are

"lmao you should write better" would have been a really good comeback

[madanili]

I dont even wear lipgloss, idk i sorta think baas the kind of guy that stares onto lips.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The one weird monopoly trick that gave us Walmart and Amazon and killed Main Street

I'm coming to BURNING MAN! On TUESDAY (Aug 27) at 1PM, I'm giving a talk called "DISENSHITTIFY OR DIE!" at PALENQUE NORTE (7&E). On WEDNESDAY (Aug 28) at NOON, I'm doing a "Talking Caterpillar" Q&A at LIMINAL LABS (830&C).

Walmart didn't just happen. The rise of Walmart – and Amazon, its online successor – was the result of a specific policy choice, the decision by the Reagan administration not to enforce a key antitrust law. Walmart may have been founded by Sam Walton, but its success (and the demise of the American Main Street) are down to Reaganomics.

The law that Reagan neutered? The Robinson-Patman Act, a very boring-sounding law that makes it illegal for powerful companies (like Walmart) to demand preferential pricing from their suppliers (farmers, packaged goods makers, meat producers, etc). The idea here is straightforward. A company like Walmart is a powerful buyer (a "monopsonist" – compare with "monopolist," a powerful seller). That means that they can demand deep discounts from suppliers. Smaller stores – the mom and pop store on your Main Street – don't have the clout to demand those discounts. Worse, because those buyers are weak, the sellers – packaged goods companies, agribusiness cartels, Big Meat – can actually charge them more to make up for the losses they're taking in selling below cost to Walmart.

Reagan ordered his antitrust cops to stop enforcing Robinson-Patman, which was a huge giveaway to big business. Of course, that's not how Reagan framed it: He called Robinson-Patman a declaration of "war on low prices," because it prevented big companies from using their buying power to squeeze huge discounts. Reagan's court sorcerers/economists asserted that if Walmart could get goods at lower prices, they would sell goods at lower prices.

Which was true…up to a point. Because preferential discounting (offering better discounts to bigger customers) creates a structural advantage over smaller businesses, it meant that big box stores would eventually eliminate virtually all of their smaller competitors. That's exactly what happened: downtowns withered, suburban big boxes grew. Spending that would have formerly stayed in the community was whisked away to corporate headquarters. These corporate HQs were inevitably located in "onshore-offshore" tax haven states, meaning they were barely taxed at the state level. That left plenty of money in these big companies' coffers to spend on funny accountants who'd help them avoid federal taxes, too. That's another structural advantage the big box stores had over the mom-and-pops: not only did they get their inventory at below-cost discounts, they didn't have to pay tax on the profits, either.

MBA programs actually teach this as a strategy to pursue: they usually refer to Amazon's "flywheel" where lower prices bring in more customers which allows them to demand even lower prices:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaSwWYemLek

You might have heard about rural and inner-city "food deserts," where all the independent grocery stores have shuttered, leaving behind nothing but dollar stores? These are the direct product of the decision not to enforce Robinson-Patman. Dollar stores target working class neighborhoods with functional, beloved local grocers. They open multiple dollar stores nearby (nearly all the dollar stores you see are owned by one of two conglomerates, no matter what the sign over the door says). They price goods below cost and pay for high levels of staffing, draining business off the community grocery store until it collapses. Then, all the dollar stores except one close and the remaining store fires most of its staff (working at a dollar store is incredibly dangerous, thanks to low staffing levels that make them easy targets for armed robbers). Then, they jack up prices, selling goods in "cheater" sizes that are smaller than the normal retail packaging, and which are only made available to large dollar store conglomerates:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/27/walmarts-jackals/#cheater-sizes

Writing in The American Prospect, Max M Miller and Bryce Tuttle1 – a current and a former staffer for FTC Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya – write about the long shadow cast by Reagan's decision to put Robinson-Patman in mothballs:

https://prospect.org/economy/2024-08-13-stopping-excessive-market-power-monopoly/

They tell the story of Robinson-Patman's origins in 1936, when A&P was using preferential discounts to destroy the independent grocery sector and endanger the American food system. A&P didn't just demand preferential discounts from its suppliers; it also charged them a fortune to be displayed on its shelves, an early version of Amazon's $38b/year payola system:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/28/enshittification/#relentless-payola

They point out that Robinson-Patman didn't really need to be enacted; America already had an antitrust law that banned this conduct: section 2 of the the Clayton Act, which was passed in 1914. But for decades, the US courts refused to interpret the Clayton Act according to its plain meaning, with judges tying themselves in knots to insist that the law couldn't possibly mean what it said. Robinson-Patman was one of a series of antitrust laws that Congress passed in a bid to explain in words so small even federal judges could understand them that the purpose of American antitrust law was to keep corporations weak:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/14/aiming-at-dollars/#not-men

Both the Clayton Act and Robinson-Patman reject the argument that it's OK to let monopolies form and come to dominate critical sectors of the American economy based on the theoretical possibility that this will lead to lower prices. They reject this idea first as a legal matter. We don't let giant corporations victimize small businesses and their suppliers just because that might help someone else.

Beyond this, there's the realpolitik of monopoly. Yes, companies could pass lower costs on to customers, but will they? Look at Amazon: the company takes $0.45-$0.51 out of every dollar that its sellers earn, and requires them to offer their lowest price on Amazon. No one has a 45-51% margin, so every seller jacks up their prices on Amazon, but you don't notice it, because Amazon forces them to jack up prices everywhere else:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/01/managerial-discretion/#junk-fees

The Robinson-Patman Act did important work, and its absence led to many of the horribles we're living through today. This week on his Peoples & Things podcast, Lee Vinsel talked with Benjamin Waterhouse about his new book, One Day I’ll Work for Myself: The Dream and Delusion That Conquered America:

https://athenaeum.vt.domains/peoplesandthings/2024/08/12/78-benjamin-c-waterhouse-on-one-day-ill-work-for-myself-the-dream-and-delusion-that-conquered-america/

Towards the end of the discussion, Vinsel and Waterhouse turn to Robinson-Patman, its author, Wright Patman, and the politics of small business in America. They point out – correctly – that Wright Patman was something of a creep, a "Dixiecrat" (southern Democrat) who was either an ideological segregationist or someone who didn't mind supporting segregation irrespective of his beliefs.

That's a valid critique of Wright Patman, but it's got little bearing on the substance and history of the law that bears his name, the Robinson-Patman Act. Vinsel and Waterhouse get into that as well, and while they made some good points that I wholeheartedly agreed with, I fiercely disagree with the conclusion they drew from these points.

Vinsel and Waterhouse point out (again, correctly) that small businesses have a long history of supporting reactionary causes and attacking workers' rights – associations of small businesses, small women-owned business, and small minority-owned businesses were all in on opposition to minimum wages and other key labor causes.

But while this is all true, that doesn't make Robinson-Patman a reactionary law, or bad for workers. The point of protecting small businesses from the predatory practices of large firms is to maintain an American economy where business can't trump workers or government. Large companies are literally ungovernable: they have gigantic war-chests they can spend lobbying governments and corrupting the political process, and concentrated sectors find it comparatively easy to come together to decide on a single lobbying position and then make it reality.

As Vinsel and Waterhouse discuss, US big business has traditionally hated small business. They recount a notorious and telling anaecdote about the editor of the Chamber of Commerce magazine asking his boss if he could include coverage of small businesses, given the many small business owners who belonged to the Chamber, only to be told, "Over my dead body." Why did – why does – big business hate small business so much? Because small businesses wreck the game. If they are included in hearings, notices of inquiry, or just given a vote on what the Chamber of Commerce will lobby for with their membership dollars, they will ask for things that break with the big business lobbying consensus.

That's why we should like small business. Not because small business owners are incapable of being petty tyrants, but because whatever else, they will be petty. They won't be able to hire million-dollar-a-month union-busting law-firms, they won't be able to bribe Congress to pass favorable laws, they can't capture their regulators with juicy offers of sweet jobs after their government service ends.

Vinsel and Waterhouse point out that many large firms emerged during the era in which Robinson-Patman was in force, but that misunderstands the purpose of Robinson-Patman: it wasn't designed to prevent any large businesses from emerging. There are some capital-intensive sectors (say, chip fabrication) where the minimum size for doing anything is pretty damned big.

As Miller and Tuttle write:

The goal of RPA was not to create a permanent Jeffersonian agrarian republic of exclusively small businesses. It was to preserve a diverse economy of big and small businesses. Congress recognized that the needs of communities and people—whether in their role as consumers, business owners, or workers—are varied and diverse. A handful of large chains would never be able to meet all those needs in every community, especially if they are granted pricing power.

The fight against monopoly is only secondarily a fight between small businesses and giant ones. It's foundationally a fight about whether corporations should have so much power that they are too big to fail, too big to jail, and too big to care.

Community voting for SXSW is live! If you wanna hear RIDA QADRI and me talk about how GIG WORKERS can DISENSHITTIFY their jobs with INTEROPERABILITY, VOTE FOR THIS ONE!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/14/the-price-is-wright/#enforcement-priorities